European Testing Week media centre

You will also find factsheets for participants to populate with regional statistics in order to support media outreach activities. For guidance to help you with any media activities, you may wish to refer to Toolkit 2 – testing week implementation handbook available for download.

Newsletters

Read our 2018 newsletters informing participants and others of the latest news, updates and ongoing activities. You can also browse the newsletters from 2015 to 2017 to see what was achieved in previous years.

Press releases

To mark the start of European Testing Week (23-30 November 2018), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has published their new public health guidance on integrated testing for HBV, HCV and HIV testing in the EU/EEA. The new guidance provides testing strategies based on the latest scientific evidence for national or local hepatitis B, C and HIV testing guidelines and programmes.

The HIV in Europe and ETW initiatives have published a press release commending ECDC for recognising the importance of combined viral hepatitis and HIV testing efforts and calls upon the European community to implement the new guidance into national context and policies.

Statements from the European Testing Week Working Group

2019

November

The theme of the November 2019 European Testing Week emphasises the importance of integrated testing of HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and sexually transmitted infections (when possible), as well as other related activities focused on increased awareness and access to testing and treatment, highlighting the importance of ETW’s longstanding tagline of Test.Treat.Prevent.

It is not a requirement to engage in integrated activities for #EuroTestWeek, however, ETW encourages all participants to use the week to create more awareness about the importance of testing for more than one condition (when possible). ETW recognises that legislative, financial and structural barriers may prohibit ETW participants in engaging in activities for other conditions, especially for conducting testing. However, ETW encourages the network to recognise the importance of integration and consider developing ways, big and small, to further inform target audiences about the importance of prevention, testing and treatment for HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs.

Past Statements

May 2019

To commemorate the launch of Spring European Testing Week, the ETW Working Group has released a statement calling for the scale-up and prioritisation of testing for HIV, hepatitis B (HBV) and hepatitis C (HCV) in prisons and other closed settings.

There is a disproportionate burden of HIV, HBV and HCV in prisons and sub-optimal access to health care, therefore ETW highlights the importance of increasing testing efforts in prisons and other closed settings as part of a comprehensive package of health services.

The European Testing Week Working Group has released two statements supporting safer and voluntary testing for key and most affected populations for HIV and hepatitis.

The first is a statement to all of Testing Week signatories to review the joint statement (available in 6 different languages) created by an informal alliance of NGOs and ensure access to effective, comprehensive, rights-based, safe, anonymous and voluntary HIV and Hepatitis testing for everyone in order to promote early diagnosis and linkage to care.

The Working Group released a second statementthat encourages government bodies and policy makers to review the joint statementand consider supporting the outlined principles in legislation.

OptTEST project: new searchable database

Want to know what legal and regulatory barriers your country, or others in Europe, are putting in the way of better HIV testing and treatment? Barring The Way To Health is a new searchable database which outlines a range of impediments to key populations and others with HIV who seek testing and access to care across the 53 countries of Europe and Central Asia. You can pull out a particular issue that concerns you across Europe, or read about a particular country. You can comment and offer amendments - and if your country is one of the small minority not yet covered, we welcome your information on it.

The OptTEST legal & regulatory barriers toolkit, is of use to anyone who wants to dismantle such barriers in their own country. The toolkit takes a "pick and mix" approach, enabling users to take what they need without wading through an enormous pdf. A series of case studies illustrates how activists, clinicians and other alliances took down specific barriers to HIV testing and treatment in their countries. Tip sheets show how to go about implementing these ideas, or your own, within your country setting. Slide sets will support presentations about the importance of identifying and mitigating barriers, to enable alliances and discussion. Each piece of the toolkit will be separately downloadable and the ideas within them adaptable to differing country circumstances and the original materials will be accompanied by a critical reading list which points the reader to many more existing resources online, with short explanations of their usefulness.

Factsheets

Factsheets are available to support your local media and partner engagement activities.

Sponsorship statement: The EuroTEST initiative is governed by an independent steering committee. The Coordinating Centre is at CHIP, RegionH, Copenhagen, and the political secretariat at the EATG. The conditions of funding the initiative are approved by the Steering Committee. Industry sponsors are invited to quarterly updates but do not participate in the Steering Committee.

Financial support of the EuroTEST initiative provided by: Abbott, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Danish National Research Foundation (grant 126), European Commission under the 3rd and 2nd Health Programmes, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, Swedish Research Council, ViiV Healthcare and Tibotec.

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